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The living is easier in St. Johns, Clay and Nassau counties than in Duval, Baker and Putnam

St. Johns is in top 4 percent of counties nationwide, New York Times study says; Duval is in the middle and Putnam is last in the nation

When it comes to the basic difficulty of living, life is Jacksonville is, well, just about average. Life in St. Johns County, however, is pretty good.

The New York Times has written a story, accompanied by an interactive map, ranking every county in the country based on education (percentage of residents with at least a bachelor’s degree), median household income, unemployment rate, disability rate, life expectancy and obesity.

Using that criteria for 3,135 counties, this is how Northeast Florida fared: St. Johns, 113; Clay, 787; Nassau, 849; Duval, 1,563; Baker, 2,480.

St. Johns is the highest ranked in the state while Putnam County got the lowest ranking in the state at 2,919.

According to the ranking, the hardest place to live in the country is Clay County, Ky., with six of the hardest 10 clustered in Appalachian Mountains of Eastern Kentucky. The other four are scattered through the rural South.

Meanwhile, six of the best 10 counties are suburbs of Washington, D.C. But the highest ranking goes to Los Alamos County, N.M., home of the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The states with solidly good rankings across all its counties: North Dakota, Wyoming, Iowa, Minnesota and were in New England, except for Maine.